Psychics, Mediums, and Spiritual Gifts

I have mentioned in several of my other writings that it is difficult if not impossible to separate ghost investigations from religion. Religion teaches of immortal eternal spirits and an afterlife which is what spirits and ghosts are. Ghost can be investigated without religion, but it is difficult to accept their reality without accepting some sort of belief system, no matter what that belief system may be. All of us no matter the belief system filter our world view through our religious belief system or lack thereof. Before we go too much further I could spout several scriptural references in this article, but I’m not going to. If this article really affects you profoundly either for or against what I am putting forth you will find the appropriate scriptural passages on your own.

One area which has always been a sticking point for me has been those who claim to be psychics and mediums. Let’s be honest when we see the woman claiming to be a psychic on the late night TV commercials swathed in multi-colored scarves, dressed as a stereotypical gypsy, peering into a crystal ball it becomes difficult to take the topic seriously. Especially when immediately confronted with a 1-900 number promising to tell us our future at a rate of $5 a minute. We have all seen the TV shows with someone claiming to be a medium and telling investigators, all about the spirits in any given location, sometimes in shows that are clearly staged.

Between the hokey late night TV commercials, the contrived television shows, and the history of the spiritualism movement of the Victorian era, rife with hucksters and frauds it’s hard not to look on this topic and not dismiss it all as a complete and utter sham. Not only is it easy to do it’s a comfortable thing to do as it doesn’t require us to expand our thinking by dismissing it outright.

I have fit into this category myself throughout my life. I’ve been able to sit back, and enjoy the world around me comfortable in dismissing anything that didn’t conform to my world view. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately depending on your point of view I had to stand back and reevaluate my thought process.

This awaking, happened when I met our investigator Brandy for the first time. Prior to meeting Brandy I held a highly skeptical and jaded view of those claiming to be mediums or psychics. This is in spite of having met some wonderful people I consider to be friends who claimed to be just that. Now before I move too far along, understand I dislike the word Medium immensely. It’s cheesy, cliche, and carries with it a lot of baggage from late night TV commercials, and the spiritualism movement of the Victorian era.

When I met Brandy I didn’t get what I expected at all. I was at a gathering called Paraconwest. It is a trade show of sorts for the paranormal community. The show represented several venues that give ghost tours, some psychics, a few mediums, celebrities in the paranormal community, and of course vendors.

Brandy was with a friend Tim. The two had purchased tickets to the trade show and were hoping to attend one of the investigations offered as part of their ticket price. I watched as the two approached the Asylum 49 table near where I was sitting. Asylum 49 is an old hospital that offers ghost tours. I have been many times and collected a lot of great evidence from the venue. I listened to them speak with the staff for a moment as they spoke of their own previous visit to the venue and their own experiences. In short order I had struck up my own conversation with the pair. Brandy and Tim were friends who had an interest in the paranormal. They told me they had in the past couple of years discovered a ghost touring company and would purchase tickets and go on ghost tours for fun.

During the conversation Tim mentioned Brandy would get frustrated on their tours because Brandy had the ability to see and talk to spirits, and once people found out they wouldn’t leave her alone, demanding she make the ghost perform for them. Tim showed me several photographs with anomalies he had taken from these tours. I was a bit taken aback by what I had learned.

I’ve conducted numerous investigations both public and private. During many of the public investigations it’s not uncommon to find people who are sensitive to spiritual energies. I myself can feel spiritual energy in a room and in reality many can once they learn to recognize it for what it is. I find some are more sensitive to this than others, but at the same time when I meet these people who claim to have this extra sensory knowledge beyond detecting spiritual energy I can’t help, but be a bit skeptical.

In Brandy I encountered something I had never expected. Here was an attractive woman who was religious and devoted to her faith. She was dressed normally, and spoke without many of the eccentricities I had come to expect from most people with her gifts. Her sheer sense of normality surprised me. She wasn’t advertising her abilities to the world, in fact she seemed resigned to them and hesitant to let others know of them because of the difficulties they had caused her in the past.

During the course of our conversation I showed Brandy and Tim some of the evidence I had collected during my investigations. While showing a video of some demonic activity in a home, which Brandy had never seen before, she shocked me when she exclaimed she could see the demonic entity on the video. I paused the video and confirmed I had heard her right. She pointed out the section on the screen where the entity was and told me what it was doing. I was astounded as some activity was about to take place exactly where she indicated in a few moments.

I asked Brandy to follow the entity on the screen with her finger. I watched as Brandy’s finger followed the path of destruction in the video just prior to the actual destruction taking place. There was no way she could have known what was going to happen unless what she was telling me was true. I spent the better part of that afternoon interviewing Brandy. I was able to confirm through Brandy many of my own theories, and I had to reexamine other theories I held which were incorrect, but what I was learning made so much more sense and was more plausible than what I had previously believed.

At this point my skepticism had been severely shaken, but wasn’t entirely gone. I was pleased to learn both Brandy and Tim would be investigating at a venue I had chosen to staff that evening. I advised them I would like them in my group as I wanted to further evaluate Brandy’s abilities. Prior to the investigation beginning, WISPS case manager Amy Perry showed me some photographs from an upcoming residential investigation she had previously scouted. Brandy was able to look at the photographs and pick out a spirit in the pictures nobody else had the ability to see. Brandy was able to provide some details from the spirit in the photograph which only Amy and I were privy to.

We conducted the investigation that night, and I was impressed by both Brandy and Tim, and I was able to independently confirm through my own evidence, and evidence collected by other groups that Brandy was the real deal. Brandy could actually see and speak with spirits. I have since had other investigations with Brandy and I have gotten further confirmation of this.

As I mentioned earlier we all take our world view from our belief system. I am a Christian, as is Brandy albeit from different faiths. How do Brandy’s abilities which we tend to see and hear about more from paganism, shamanism, Wicca, or the occult tie into a Christian belief system? Are these abilities incompatible with Christendom? I would argue they are not.

Both the Bible and LDS scriptures talk about gifts of the spirit. Both sets of scripture also refer to a veil which keeps us from perceiving the spirit world around us. As is the case with Brandy I believe she has been given a spiritual gift. That veil has been partially lifted from her eyes that she can communicate between the spirit world and our own.

Many theologians would argue with me about this being an evil thing, and I will say it bluntly, they are wrong. Scripture prohibits us from seeking out dead loved ones to learn about the other side. This is because of the numerous hosts of evil spirits which can seek to imitate and lead us astray. The other problem with this approach is those seeking out psychics to communicate with those who have passed on are not relying on god and the scriptures and are seeking prophecy from outside sources. With evil spirits ready to mislead this can be dangerous.

So why would someone like Brandy have this ability to communicate with spirits? There is purpose in all things. The Roman Catholic doctrines believe in a place called purgatory. This is a waiting area of sorts for spirits to cleanse themselves before going to heaven. This doctrine is very similar to the LDS doctrine of Spirit Prison and Paradise. Some spirits become earthbound when they can’t crossover. This is usually because the spirit is afraid to crossover, or is fixated with something left over from their life. People like Brandy can use their gift to help these spirits come to terms with their problems and help them make that transition from Purgatory or Spirit Prison to a paradise state. This explanation is an over simplification, of the issue at hand, but I could write a lengthy paper on that topic alone.

Through a gift like Brandy’s we can more easily help right that one wrong that a spirit is fixated on, or even discover the nature of a ghost related problem a family is dealing with and how better to approach and solve the problem for everyone involved.

The important thing to remember is just because someone claims no matter how reluctantly that they have a special gift it is important to not believe that claim blindly. The gift must be tested and proven before it can be accepted. By their fruits ye shall know them, as can been seen by the fraudulent claims and money making schemes of many of the spiritualists of the Victorian Era.

Spiritual gifts are real, and they are for the benefit of not only their recipient, but their fellow man the welfare of those who have passed one. They must however be used wisely.